Ayoze Perez “It is really hard when you get a lot of games week by week”

Share

Ayoze Perez made his first start for a month when helping Newcastle beat Brentford 3-1 on Saturday.

The Spaniard saying that he had desperately needed a full 90 minutes and hopes to keep his place on Tuesday night at Barnsley.

Rafa Benitez had given Mohamed Diame a rare day off in the role behind the main striker and Ayoze Perez was given his chance, rather than wide left as most of his starts have been.

Difficult to say if Ayoze Perez was any more effective than Diame has been (our player ratings by fans showed Perez with the lowest rating of all) and certainly the former Tenerife player hasn’t got the work rate of Diame.

The last time Newcastle had Championship matches in such quick succession, Rafa Benitez played Diame/Gayle at Derby on the Saturday, then a whole fresh pairing of Mitrovic/Perez on the Tuesday at QPR.

That match of course saw a crushing 6-0 away win but since then there has been no further chances for a Mitro/Perez partnership. To be fair, last season most of the Spaniard’s best games happened when he was given a role close to Mitrovic but with Dwight Gayle clearly the first choice number nine, it is difficult to see many opportunities for that pairing to be given many other run-outs this season.

Ironically, Ayoze Perez says that it is ‘really hard when you get a lot of games week by week’, he will be hoping he gets the chance to experience that over the course of the next few weeks.

Ayoze Perez speaking to NUFC TV:

“It felt really well (playing v Brentford), happy to be back (last start was defeat to Wolves a month earlier) in the team.

“It was quite hard after a few games with no minutes but really happy because we win, we had a good performance. Happy to get 90 minutes and I needed it, now I need to keep working hard , there is competition in every position and we need to fight for every place.